CAIRO, 4 August 2003 — With a revolutionary mix of jazz, rock, blues and Arab music, boy band West El-Balad is taking Egypt’s youth scene by storm, in a craze for a new brand of modern music that shows no sign of letting up.
From the opening guitar chord, the young audience go wild wherever the music is played, be it in a classy Cairo restaurant, a night club in the coastal resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, or one of the group’s free concerts subsidized by the government.
The band’s eight members, aged from 22 to 38,dressed casually in T-shirts and jeans and sport a variety of hair-do’s, from shaven heads to heavy, frizzy hair knotted in dreadlocks and scooped back in a ponytail. At the heart of their music is what they call “Cairo’s perpetual effervescence”, and significantly, their name, which means (town center), is a reminder of their lean years, when the only places they could practice were the capital’s back streets and alleyways. “One night, we were practicing until 4 am opposite the Al-Waily police station,” a working-class quarter of Cairo, says Adham El-Saeed, singer and co-founder of the group.” They didn’t stop us. Instead, a crowd gathered to listen to us,” the 37-year-old history graduate adds, smiling. Of the eight members, six, including Saeed, have never taken singing or music lessons, learning to play guitars and percussion instruments by ear.
Only composer Ahmed Omran and 26-year-old guitarist Ahmed Omar, an Eritrean born in Egypt, have had musical coaching. Formed four years ago, the group only hit the big time a year ago, after playing, during a festival, in the Cairo underground. “It was an unforgettable evening, we were at one with the public,” beams co-founder Hani Adel, 27, guitarist, singer and composer.
They light up when remembering their early years. “I couldn’t afford to buy an instrument, so I started to beat out rhythms on tables in coffee shops,” says percussionist Ihab Abdel Hamid, 26, a law student. “That was before I stretched some animal skin over a wooden box to get a sound like congas,” he adds. “We’re not geniuses, fashions change,” says Adham.
In a powerful voice rich with emotion, he belts out songs written by young Egyptian writers, either on his own, or with Hani. But the group also performs rock and jazz arrangements of the music of Egypt’s most famous composer, Sayed Darwich, who died in 1926, and the poetry of eighth-century bard Bashar Ibn Borod or the Communist Naguib Sorur.” Music is a language. Everyone is free to use it as they want,” says Hani, explaining their original take on Egypt’s cultural heritage. And it works. Teenagers are crazy about their music, which they herald as a breath of fresh air to an otherwise stagnant business. “In Egypt there have always been Western bands, but they’re not interested in our traditions,” says Heba Saeed, 21, computer studies student. “West El-Balad has been able to change all that,” she adds. Today, the band’s dream is to conquer the world and perform with a symphony orchestra at the Cairo Opera House, Hani says. But for 22-year-old percussionist Mohamed Sadek, nicknamed (Mizu), there is another, more personal ambition.
Mizu’s goal is to take on the US. “Because Americans think Egyptians aren’t civilized and that we don’t have music. I want to prove them wrong,” he explains.
